The Abbey Brewery - the property of Messrs. W. Younger and Co.
Anonymous engraved view published on p. 218 of The Official Illustrated Guide to the North British Railway, 1861

Occupying a prominent site at the foot of the Canongate, William Younger and Company's Abbey Brewery is shown in its Victorian heyday. The Younger dynasty's brewing fortunes began modestly in 1749, when William Younger, a former exciseman, established his brewery. Later, attracted like other brewers by the pure springs and wells in the area of Holyrood palace and the lower Canongate, two of his sons established breweries within the Abbey precincts, thereby avoiding the city's 2d tax on each pint. Robert Chambers described Archibald Campbell Younger's ale as 'a potent fluid which almost glued the lips of the drinker together' (Traditions of Edinburgh,1868 edn, p.184). The firm's growing prosperity and ambitions led in 1825 to the purchase and demolition of the Marquess of Lothian's house, Lothian Hut, on the west side of Horse Wynd. The site was redeveloped as the Abbey Brewery, incorporating a few picturesque fragments of the mansion. Horse Wynd, which was made into a thoroughfare some time after 1765, and from which the brewery was entered, appears on the right.

The premises expanded from 1829 by piecemeal acquisitions of adjoining houses and other minor brewing and malting premises in the Canongate until 1886, when the Dukes of Roxburghe's former town house was acquired and demolished to make way for additions to the brewery and a new school (Milton House School). The Canongate, formerly an area of aristocratic residences, also boasted the Duke of Queensberry's imposing mansion, extended in the 1690s. Falling out of use as the family's town house, in 1803 it was sold for use as a barracks. In 1815 it became a hospital, which it remained in various forms until 1996. It is shown at the top left.

Up the Canongate to the west, and off to the left of this view, lay another brewery, acquired by Younger's in 1858, known as the Holyrood Brewery. From their adjacent premises Younger and Co's products were distributed to a wide market, including India, hence the popular India Ale plainly advertised in the vignette of Holyrood House. In the 20th century Younger's became part of Scottish and Newcastle plc, whose administrative headquarters were in the Abbey Brewery, and which opened a new brewery in Fountainbridge in 1973. Brewing ceased in the Canongate in 1986.

A programme of urban housing regeneration on the huge site was in hand when the success of devolution proposals in 1997 necessitated the choice of a location for the new Scottish Parliament. A lively public debate ensued, in which many argued for the old Royal High School site on Calton Hill, seen in the background of this view. However, in January 1998 the site of the Abbey Brewery, and adjacent land across Holyrood Road, was announced as the chosen site. In 1999 all the brewery buildings were demolished, and construction of the new Parliament building began, to designs by Enric Miralles and Partners.

T.N.C.

Courtesy of the National Archives of Scotland (BR/LIB(S)/18/52)

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